I just wonder if Adobe will force me to upgrade to CS6 just to get
Camera RAW 7? It looks like LR4 brings highlights/shadows in RAW processing.
Are they really gonna wait with this for CS6 just to charge for an upgrade?

I would expect that Adobe is not going to release LR4 without also updating ACR in whatever Photoshop version is then current. I tried to go to Edit in Photoshop, and, while it works fine the ACR difference causes an extra dialog box as to the LR changes. Since it does not appear that CS6 will be offered simultaneously with LR4, I would hope that ACR 7 is added to CS5. We'll see.

Z_man wrote:
I would expect that Adobe is not going to release LR4 without also updating ACR in whatever Photoshop version is then current. I tried to go to Edit in Photoshop, and, while it works fine the ACR difference causes an extra dialog box as to the LR changes. Since it does not appear that CS6 will be offered simultaneously with LR4, I would hope that ACR 7 is added to CS5. We'll see.

I want to agree with you, it would look pretty bad if LR had so many
improvements, but PS was still behind. I hope you're right

I have yet to see Adobe put any improvements/enhancements in Raw processing in the existing version of ACR/Photoshop (with the exception of Lightroom 1.1/ACR 4.1). Any new features in Lightroom will only be available in ACR 7/CS6.

Typically Adobe releases six updates to the current version of ACR at 3-month intervals. We are already at ACR 6.6 so I doubt any other updates to ACR 6 will be forthcoming. They may release another ACR update with new camera support (as they did with ACR 5.7) but it will be will not have the new processing features.

Absolutely no-one is putting a gun to your head. And it's not like developing personnel and support staff comes cheap, nowadays. If it's a product you need / want /use - pay for it.

Why does EVERYONE expect to get everything for free now? On boards like this people nag and moan about the state of photography, "no-one wants to pay the prices I had in 2004" and so on, but they themselves just can't be bothered to pay for other people's work.

They are in no way FORCING you use a product upgrade they've spent thousands of qualified software development engineer hours on, and keep a rather large support staff for.

theSuede wrote:
Absolutely no-one is putting a gun to your head. And it's not like developing personnel and support staff comes cheap, nowadays. If it's a product you need / want /use - pay for it.

Why does EVERYONE expect to get everything for free now? On boards like this people nag and moan about the state of photography, "no-one wants to pay the prices I had in 2004" and so on, but they themselves just can't be bothered to pay for other people's work.

They are in no way FORCING you use a product upgrade they've spent thousands of qualified software development engineer hours on, and keep a rather large support staff for....Show more →

I agree. How can anyone whine about having to pay for new enhanced functionality. The time to whine is when Adobe decides not to add anymore functionality and boat anchors the product.

When we upgrade our OS from XP to say Win7, do we also expect this to be free?

I bet adobe WON'T upgrade cs5 with the new acr .
They have (to the best of my knowledge) never made such a major upgrade to a current version before.
They will introduce it into cs6 .
Cs6 will not be very long to ship, adobe have already announced upgrade plans (that have been tweaked a little). If you have cs5 then you would be mad not to upgrade to cs6 now that adobe have changed their upgrade policy . Skipping a version now will cost you so much more.

I was just on the phone with Adobe support and they don't like snowboarder's attitude
and told me that when Photoshop 6 is released not only will the refuse to sell it to him they will disable his current version until he apologizes, then they might sell him a full version but not a upgrade to teach him a lesson.

WAYCOOL wrote:
I was just on the phone with Adobe support and they don't like snowboarder's attitude
and told me that when Photoshop 6 is released not only will the refuse to sell it to him they will disable his current version until he apologizes, then they might sell him a full version but not a upgrade to teach him a lesson.

Nonsense, they love snowboarder's attitude! In fact, they told me they just 'upgraded' his photoshop only license to a full creative suite license! He just got a bunch of extra programs for free, and even if he never uses them, he has the option to and they are all for free!

BluesWest wrote:
Perhaps he's referring to Aperture: $79.99 from the Apple App Store. Aperture will do most of what Lightroom will do. It needs better NR, but other than that it's pretty much Lightroom's equal.